Alison Gold’s “Chinese Food” Music Video: What The Hell?

The wonderfully idiotic adults behind Rebecca Black’s “Friday” have done it again, kidnapping what appears to be a sweet teenage girl and forcing her in front of the camera to perform the world’s worst song. Ark Music Factory, led by producer Patrice Wilson (he’s the dude in the panda costume; what panda costume, you ask? hang on), has topped itself with “Chinese Food,” simply a glop of bewilderment and suburban American camp.

I’m not going to pretend to hate this, because I don’t. I’m just, like you, astonished to have this opportunity to peel back the skin of music and art and stick my head in — all the way in — so that the other side comes into plain view: a blond girl, a man in a panda suit, a chaperoned slumber party… and Chinese food. Welcome to the aesthete’s Technicolored nightmare.

If you’d rather avoid losing three-and-a-half unrecoverable minutes of your life, here’s basically what happens: a peppy young blond walks in a field complaining about her hunger after “I go clubbing” (white person problem No. 2,491). In the classic patois of teenage girls everywhere, she uses reduplication (e.g., “I like-like him”) to tell you exactly how she feels: “getting getting getting grumpy grumpy.” But lo! Is that a Chinese restaurant? Yes it is!

I see Chow, by my right
I smell food in the air
It’s Chinese Food, my favorite
So I’m getting getting getting getting hungry

It goes on like this for a while until a stuffed panda comes into play. He looks, at first, like a stalker, but Alison takes fondly to him and they hold hands while skipping through a field. (No, really. Also, I thought kids hated pandas.) Patrice Wilson reveals himself and eats some barbecue in the creepiest way. And then the coup de grace: Alison and her bratty friends put on qipao and white face powder in what looks to be a chaperoned party. Check out the adult on the left of this screen grab. She is every suburban mother you know.

The final scene is Alison looking down on a fortune cookie slip telling her “The panda will fly away on a rainbow.”

Then:

People on the Internet are calling casual racism on this thing, but honestly, there’s no need to pile on. Just give these people the blame –

[Patrice Wilson:]
Yo!
I like Chinese food
And some Wonton soup
Get me broccoli
While I play Monopoly
Don’t be a busy bee
Cause it’s your fantasy
To eat Chinese food
Egg roll and Chop Suey
I use the chopsticks
To eat pot sticks
Put some hot sauce and sweet and sour make it sweet
Because Chinese food takes away my stress
Now I’m going to go eat Panda Express

The average opinion on Youku is that this is definitive proof that Japan belongs to China. Uh-huh.

Also: those aren’t qipao, otherwise known as cheongsam/what hostesses all wear at restaurants. Those are kimonos wore by geishas, the robes that are brusquely torn asunder when a lusty, drunk samurai blunders into the tea house.